ABSTRACT
The people of Mauritius, it is tempting to say, collectively exploit a fair proportion of Orlando's vast role repertoire. Widely considered an economic miracle by the 1990s, Mauritius is also a stable multi-party democracy that has gone through several peaceful changes of government since independence in 1968. Starting from Cassis in the west and moving towards Roche-Bois in the east, several distinctively ethnic neighbourhoods can be identified in Port-Louis. All the major ethnic categories of Mauritius except the Franco-Mauritians are represented in one or several distinct neighbourhoods. From Beau-Bassin, the Route Royale goes steeply downhill through Coromandel, a new industrial estate reminding the visitor that manufacturing has replaced sugar as the main earner of foreign currency during the 1990s, and eventually reaches hot and humid Port-Louis. Although fieldwork in Mauritius was carried out in 1986 and in 1991-2, the ethnographic present is used throughout the book except when the temporal setting makes a difference.
